80% of Americans have not recovered from the recession.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a chart showing that 80% of Americans have not recovered from the recession as of the latest annual data (2014):

Note that compensation rose a lot more than wages for most people. The main reason for higher elite household compensation is because of their investment earnings. Richer people aren’t generally earning more by working.  The main reason they are earning more now is because their property is earning higher dividends, rents, and capital gains.

Whereas the graph shows that median annual compensation was down by over 3% in 2014, FRED shows that real mean compensation had already surpassed pre-recession levels in 2014 because elites had seen their compensation rise so much: